1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a log control method, and a program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, more importance has been placed on accumulating logs (acquiring activity history) in business activities because the Japanese version of the SOX Act (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) will soon be implemented, which is for maintaining the validity of financial reports. Logs are used for the following purposes:                Accountability—for responding to audits        Monitor—check the status of business implementation and detect abnormalities        Respond to accidents—respond to failures, forensic, restoration        
Among these, “accountability” is achieved by disclosing activity history in logs, for the purpose of describing that business activities have been valid. Logs can be used as important evidence to prove the validity of past business activities.
Logs are also important in devices such as image forming apparatuses, which are used for the same purposes as those of logs in business activities. Particularly, in terms of “accountability”, logs can be used as evidence for proving to the user that the device is appropriately operating. A project for enhancing security assurance in image forming apparatuses is now being developed. This project is for stipulating a requirement of recording the operation history of security-related functions in logs.
Although log functions are important, the storage regions of logs in devices such as image forming apparatuses have limited capacities. Accordingly, the log storage region may become full (log-full state). In a log-full state, obviously no further logs can be recorded. Also, it is not preferable to execute functions without recording logs, in consideration of security. Therefore, in a log-full state, functions should not be executed (functions should be stopped).
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2006-41764 (patent document 1) discloses a technology of stopping a new job when a log of the new job cannot be recorded in a log region and logs cannot be deleted from the log region.
In an image forming apparatus that implements functions via a network, the operation history of functions implemented via the network is recorded as logs. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-273098 (patent document 2) discloses a technology of stopping a function implemented via the network by disabling a protocol, based on the frequency of receiving data according to the protocol.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2006-41764    Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-273098
However, with the technology disclosed in patent document 1, all of the functions are uniformly stopped, and therefore inconvenience may be caused to the user. Furthermore, with the technology of patent document 2, when there is no more space available in the log storage region, even if a function implemented via the network is stopped based on the frequency of receiving data according to a protocol, inconvenience may be caused to the user.